Reinventing the university for the 21st century

[DavidYamada]

Hi Leland,

Thank you for your latest questions. In the interest of time and space, I'll try to respond compactly.

A good number of these details will be considered as time, energy, and resources allow. Our capacity to develop both programs and resources will depend on the willingness of people to make meaningful commitments to work with us on creating them. We hope, for example, that we can find someone willing to work closely and collaboratively with us to develop an online resource library.

In terms of creating formal WDU affiliations/titles with individuals outside of a small core of people doing the infrastructural grunt work (such as Uli's building and managing this site), I seriously doubt that we will be making academic appointments and developing faculty titles as one would find in a traditional university. Our approach will be a more networked and partnered one, rather than trying to build an extensive, formal "faculty."

To answer your more immediate question, your climate change talk would not be a WDU event. As I explain in this item, we are accepting program and project proposals to collaborate with us:
https://www.worlddignityuniversity.org/forum/topic/18

I hope this is helpful!

[ulisp10]

Certainly, WDU deserves to feature a fine library; what would be most fitting?

I recently began to learn of The Society Library.

Dear Lee,

thanks for making us aware of the Society Library. This looks interesting and it is great that you plan to monitor their progress.
Regarding the WDU Library, at the moment we can use Evelin's massive collection on the HumanDHS website. I do admit, I do not yet know how best to develop that into a structured database to make access to specific items easy. This is not a technical issue: I have already added extensions to our website software platform which allow for cataloging and organizing content in any way we decide. Rather, it is an issue of time needed to transfer what we already have. Before doing so, we have to agree on an appropriate system of categories, keywords, ... and so on. I would expect an experienced librarian to need some months to do this. And this is just what Evelin brings to the database. Many of our users also can contribute important stuff.
In my view, we can only achieve something, if we have a very focussed approach, not collecting every information which is somehow connected to human dignity. There is too much. Why not start with small collections on very specific, carefully chosen topics?

I invite all to share their ideas on this.
Uli

[DavidYamada]

Uli, thank you for sharing more ideas about building a WDU resource library. I agree wholeheartedly that we should not try to list & link every possible source relevant to dignity. But if we want to encourage access and use of the core materials produced by those within our community, then I think we need to be very deliberate about how we start this process.

The HumanDHS site includes many core writings and links to pertinent materials, but it is not user-friendly. The site overall is more of an archive, such that only those patient enough to work through it can maximize its value as a research tool. (This excludes a lot of younger folks, who expect material to be only a few clicks away.) I've remarked many times that we need to develop curated lists and annotated bibliographies to help identify the most useful and authoritative material.

Even without dedicated help on the library project, we can make a start on this by identifying truly core works and going from there. It's something that I'll have some time to think about this spring.